Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:06:12.235Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Unconditional Support for Trump’s Resistance Prior to Election Day

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2022

Brendan Hartnett
Affiliation:
Tufts University, USA
Alexandra Haver
Affiliation:
New York University School of Law, USA

Abstract

Using survey data collected less than two weeks before the 2020 presidential election, we investigated why likely Trump voters would support Trump resisting the election results if he lost. We first used an experiment with randomized hypothetical popular-vote margins to test whether support for resistance was contingent on the results of the election. We also directly asked respondents who stated that they would support resistance to explain their reasoning in an open-ended response. In doing so, we gained insight into one of the most turbulent elections in American history and examined how support for resistance existed before the election due to both misinformation about voter fraud and hyperpartisanship that made Trump voters view the electoral process itself as illegitimate.

Type
Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Badger, Emily. 2020a. “Americans Are Afraid. Not for Themselves, but for the Country.” New York Times, November 1. www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/upshot/election-democracy-fear-americans.html.Google Scholar
Badger, Emily. 2020b. “Most Republicans Say They Doubt the Election. How Many Really Mean It?” New York Times, November 30. www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/upshot/republican-voters-election-doubts.html.Google Scholar
Berlinski, Nicholas, Doyle, Margaret, Guess, Andrew M., Levy, Gabrielle, Lyons, Benjamin, Montgomery, Jacob M., Nyhan, Brendan, and Reifler, Jason. 2021. “The Effects of Unsubstantiated Claims of Voter Fraud on Confidence in Elections.” Journal of Experimental Political Science, 116. DOI:10.1017/XPS.2021.18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullock, John G., Gerber, Alan S., Hill, Seth J., and Huber, Gregory A.. 2015. “Partisan Bias in Factual Beliefs about Politics.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 10 (4): 519–78. DOI:10.1561/100.00014074.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleary, Matthew R., and Öztürk, Aykut. 2020. “When Does Backsliding Lead to Breakdown? Uncertainty and Opposition Strategies in Democracies at Risk.” Perspectives on Politics, 117. DOI:10.1017/S1537592720003667.Google Scholar
C-SPAN . 2022. “Former President Trump Speaks at Arizona Republican Party Political Rally.” C-SPAN, January 15. www.c-span.org/video/?517043-1/president-trump-speaks-arizona-gop-political-rally&event=517043&playEvent&auto.Google Scholar
Diamond, Jeremy. 2016. “Donald Trump: ‘I Will Totally Accept’ Election Results ‘If I Win.’” CNN, October 20. www.cnn.com/2016/10/20/politics/donald-trump-i-will-totally-accept-election-results-if-i-win/index.html.Google Scholar
Enders, Adam M., and Smallpage, Steven M.. 2019. “Information Cues, Partisan-Motivated Reasoning, and the Manipulation of Conspiracy Beliefs.” Political Communication 36 (1): 83102. DOI:10.1080/10584609.2018.1493006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellman, Barton. 2020. “The Election That Could Break America.” The Atlantic, September 23. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424.Google Scholar
Graham, Matthew, and Svolik, Milan W.. 2020. “Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States.” American Political Science Review 114 (2): 392409. DOI:10.1017/S0003055420000052.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagan, Lisa. 2021. “Poll: A Third of Americans Question Legitimacy of Biden Victory Nearly a Year Since Jan. 6.” U.S. News and World Report, December 28. www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-12-28/poll-a-third-of-americans-question-legitimacy-of-biden-victory-nearly-a-year-since-jan-6.Google Scholar
Hartnett, Brendan, and Haver, Alexandra. 2022. “Replication Data for: ‘Unconditional Support for Trump’s Resistance Prior to Election Day.’” Harvard Dataverse. DOI:10.7910/DVN/YNUE8B.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Gary. 2021. “Driven to Extremes: Donald Trump’s Extraordinary Impact on the 2020 Elections.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 51 (3): 492521. DOI:10.1111/psq.12724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahan, Dan M., Jenkins-Smith, Hank, and Braman, Donald. 2011. “Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus.” Journal of Risk Research 14 (2): 147–74. DOI:10.1080/13669877.2010.511246.Google Scholar
Kahan, Dan M., Peters, Ellen, Wittlin, Maggie, Slovic, Paul, Ouellette, Lisa Larrimore, Berman, Donald, and Mandel, Gregory. 2012. “The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks.” Nature Climate Change 2:732–35. DOI:10.1038/nclimate1547.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahn, Chris. 2020. “Four in Ten Supporters of Biden: Trump Would Not Accept Election Defeat: Reuters/Ipsos Poll.” Reuters, October 25. www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll/four-in-ten-supporters-of-biden-trump-would-not-accept-election-defeat-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKBN27A0BB.Google Scholar
Levitsky, Steven, and Way, Lucan. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitsky, Steven, and Ziblatt, Daniel. 2018. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Nelson, Louis. 2017. “Trump Signs Executive Order Creating Voter Fraud Commission.” Politico, May 11. www.politico.com/story/2017/05/11/trump-voter-fraud-commission-238263.Google Scholar
Oehmichen, Axel, Hua, Kevin, Lopez, Julio, Molina-Solana, Miguel, Gómez-Romero, Juan, and Guo, Yike. 2019. “Not All Lies Are Equal: A Study into the Engineering of Political Misinformation in the 2016 US Presidential Election.” IEEE Access, 11. DOI:10.1109/access.2019.2938389.Google Scholar
Persily, Nathan, and Stewart, Charles III. 2021. “The Miracle and Tragedy of the 2020 U.S. Election.” Journal of Democracy 32 (2): 159–78. DOI:10.1353/jod.2021.0026.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petrocik, John Richard. 2009. “Measuring Party Support: Leaners Are Not Independents.” Electoral Studies 28 (4): 562–72. DOI:10.1016/j.electstud.2009.05.022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Real Clear Politics . 2020. “General Election: Trump vs. Biden.” www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html.Google Scholar
Schaffner, Brian F. 2022. “The Heightened Importance of Racism and Sexism in the 2018 US Midterm Elections.” British Journal of Political Science 52 (1): 492500. DOI:10.1017/S0007123420000319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, Brian, and Luks, Samantha. 2018. “Misinformation or Expressive Responding? What an Inauguration Crowd Can Tell Us About the Source of Political Misinformation in Surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly 84 (1): 125–47. DOI:10.1093/poq/nfx042.Google Scholar
Silver, Nate. 2020. “2020 Election Forecast.” FiveThirtyEight. Accessed October 11, 2020. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast.Google Scholar
Spangler, Todd. 2020. “Twitter Has Flagged 200 of Trump’s Posts as ‘Disputed’ or Misleading Since Election Day. Does It Make a Difference?” Variety, November 27. https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/twitter-trump-200-disputed-misleading-claims-election-1234841137.Google Scholar
Swire, Birony, Berzinksy, Adam J., Lewandowsky, Stephan, and Ullrich, K. H. Ecker. 2017. “Processing Political Misinformation: Comprehending the Trump Phenomenon.” The Royal Society of Open Science 4 (3): 121. DOI:10.1098/rsos.160802.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
The Economist/YouGov. 2020a. “The Economist/YouGov Poll November 15–17, 2020: 1,500 US Registered Voters.” YouGov. https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/02yn0jg6d7/econTabReport.pdf.Google Scholar
The Economist . 2020b. “Forecasting the US Elections.” https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president.Google Scholar
Vachudova, Milada A. 2021. “Populism, Democracy, and Party System Change in Europe.” Annual Review of Political Science 21 (1): 471–98. DOI:10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-102711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wootson, Cleve R. 2016. “Donald Trump: ‘I Won the Popular Vote If You Deduct the Millions of People Who Voted Illegally.’” Washington Post, November 27. www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/27/donald-trump-i-won-the-popular-vote-if-you-deduct-the-millions-of-people-who-voted-illegally.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Hartnett and Haver Dataset

Link